With the Parliament’s return fast approaching, Prime Minister, the Hon Scott Morrison MP, has kicked off the political year by providing the first National Press Club Address for 2020 at which Nexus attended and hosted a table.
Following his speech, we have been thinking about Mr Morrison’s speech and what people should be taking away from the inaugural speech of 2020.
With this in mind, here are our three key takeaways from Prime Minister, the Hon Scott Morrison MP’s speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, 29 January 2020.
THE ECONOMY REMAINS A KEY FOCUS
As we outlined in our 2020 Political Predictions for 2020 (which you can read here), a healthy Budget is one of the top priorities for the Government in 2020 with the Prime Minister reiterating his desire for Australia’s economy to remain strong throughout 2020.
As part of this commitment, Mr Morrison has maintained that the Government will deliver a Budget Surplus in May 2020 which will serve as a key performance indicator for the Australian economy going forward.
Mr Morrison’s speech highlighted that there haver been the additional pressures to the Budget given the necessary response to both the bushfire and the coronavirus epidemic. Despite this, Mr Morrison was eager to point out how the Government’s management and the relative strength of the economy to date has assisted in the disaster response efforts.
In addition, Mr Morrison was keen to show how the Government’s commitment to continually improving the policy areas of employment, skills, infrastructure and education will continue to support the Australian economy going into the new decade.
From his speech, it is clear that the economy will remain to be a key area of focus for the Prime Minister in 2020 and especially in the early part of 2020 in the lead up to the handing down of the Budget on Tuesday, 12 May 2020.
BROADER ACTION IS REQUIRED FOLLOWING BUSHFIRE DISASTER
Given the gravity of the damage caused by the bushfires across Australia it was inevitable that it was going to be a key focus of the Prime Minister’s speech on Wednesday.
As part of the speech, Mr Morrison was keen to set the record straight with regards to Commonwealth support on the bushfires, given that responsibility for the response to these disasters is with State Governments.
Despite these issues, Mr Morrison used his address to praise the response effort from the Australia Defence Force and the coordination of the response effort by the Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management, the Hon David Littleproud MP.
In addition, Mr Morrison has outlined the Government’s priorities for its ongoing response to the bushfire crisis including the establishment of a Royal Commission into the bushfire as well as altering the current legal situation which prevented the Prime Minister from calling a national state of emergency.
In addition, the Prime Minister has indicated that his Government is looking to implement better legal processes to understand the responsibilities of both the Federal and State Governments in these disaster situations.
In the wake of these fires, climate change is once again in the forefront of people’s minds and Mr Morrison was also keen to use his speech to outline the Government’s commitment to action on climate change.
In his speech, Mr Morrison summarised his government’s approach to climate change in two words, mitigation and adaptation and going forward it appears that climate change policy will be focussed on these two areas.
The Government’s response to these disaster will be an interesting space to watch with it likely to be one of the first key tests of the Morrison Government this year.
SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY WILL ALSO BE EMPHASISED IN 2020
The development and implementation of national security and defence policy has been another hallmark of the Hon Scott Morrison MP’s time as Prime Minister, with particular emphasis placed on the Pacific region.
As part of his address, Mr Morrison was keen to link the strength of Australia’s economy to the ability to keep Australians safe both within Australia and abroad. In addition to the return to a Budget Surplus in the May Budget, Mr Morrison has also indicated that Australia’s level of defence spending will once again be restored to 2 per cent of Australia’s GDP, with defence spending not reaching this level since June 1995.
The Pacific Step-Up, which was announced in late 2019, will be key piece of the Morrison Government’s defence policy going forward, especially with the growing influence of China in the region with the ‘Belt and Road initiative’. An interesting note is that one of Mr Morrison first international trips following his victory at the 2019 Election was to the Pacific region, visiting key leaders throughout the Pacific.
Despite this keen interest in the region, it has been reported that Mr Morrison will be cutting down on his international commitments in 2020. However, it is likely that at some point in 2020 a member of the Morrison Government, whether it is the Prime Minister or the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Hon Alex Hawke MP, will visit our Pacific neighbours once again.
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